It happened again ! The northward shift has occurred and hopefully will continue to occur over the next day and the MRV is once again in play for a decent snowfall Tuesday into Wednesday. Though this doesn't appear to be a setup capable of producing epic snowfall, its certainly good enough for the folks at the NWS Burlington office to issue a winter storm watch for their portion of the state (Albany covers portions of southern Vermont and they have done the same). Meanwhile, a healthy dose of sunshine will help temperatures recover Sunday from the -10 to -15 degree morning and we won't be contending with the bitterly cold wind chills.
One thing we can make very clear is that Monday is dry in northern Vermont even as the storm is raging closer to the NYC metro. A few hours of early sunshine is even likely before clouds advance into the region in the midday hours. Temperatures will again start below zero but rise well into the 20's with light winds. The setup for the upcoming storm is somewhat unique because of the departed polar jet and the very closed off upper air pattern underneath the blocking in northern Quebec. This combination translates into a slow motion scenario where snowfall is slowly advancing northward. Be patient, the snow will arrive but it will take a little time. Furthermore, the slower movement will keep the snow falling (albeit at a lesser rate) through Wednesday.
The fun begins late Monday evening with snow advancing methodically northward maybe even slightly west of northward. The overnight hours should (Monday night) should feature several hours of decent snowfall rates capable of delivering 6-10 inches to MRG by early Tuesday. I would love to be able to advertise more but the storm appears a bit stretched out by the time snowfall is impacting Vermont. What I mean by this is that the primary are of precipitation will become pretty dislocated from the main surface feature, driven mainly by a closed off upper air pattern. This very much reduces the risk the epic two footer and likely means that after some decent snow very early Tuesday, we are seeing intermittent light snow during the midday and afternoon hours and an additional 1-3 inch accumulation. This still makes for a pretty incredible day on the hill in spite of what we expect to be some pretty gusty northeast winds. Those lighter snows will continue Tuesday night into Wednesday as winds become more favorable for terrain/Champlain enhanced material. This should be enough to push 48 hour snowfall totals (ending Wednesday evening) over a foot.
Beyond Wednesday the outlook continues to trend colder. We may even get through the Friday push of milder temperatures without any major thaw while possibly adding a light accumulation of snow. A 2nd push of milder temperatures continues to be indicated for Sunday/Monday but even this looks weaker and may fail to produce a stretch of above freezing temperatures of any significance. It is not impossible to conjure up new snow in this time frame as well given the right set of circumstances. All that said, the threat for non-snow type precipitation in the period beginning Friday Feb 5 and ending the 8th remains. Arctic air is then likely to return for a few days between the Feb 9-11 which certainly did not seem especially likely a week or so go.
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